The Fire Dragon King (2)
"Get out of my way!"
"Hyaaah!"
The warrior fairy Horus and the lancer fairy Syla came at me with everything they had. Even with the edge in attributes, stats, and level, taking on two fairies at once was no walk in the park. They struck from both sides in turns, and I caught as many of their blows as I could on sword and shield — but every so often my hands got crossed up and one slipped through.
"Kh!"
The spear that came flying at my face was vicious. That sharp spearhead rushing toward my eyes was honestly terrifying enough to make me piss myself a little. I twisted my head just in time to dodge, but the blade nicked my cheek.
"Now!"
"Master!"
Seizing the moment I was driven back, Horus tried to break away and run behind me. Back there, Aquaril was weaving through the thief fairy Kanya's thrown attacks, closing in on the Fire Dragon King who cowered in Kanya's shadow. She was clearly determined to protect her Master first — he was the one in danger. But I wasn't about to just stand there and let Horus get across.
"I said you're not getting past me!"
"Kyah!"
Horus never saw the shield coming. It slammed into her back and sent her sprawling face-first onto the floor.
The outcome of this fight hinged on the Fire Dragon King. If that half-unhinged wreck of a man snapped back to his senses, this battle would get dozens of times harder. A mage under the protection of his allies is more dangerous than any modern firearm. So I had to kill him before he recovered — or at the very least, take out every last fairy standing between us. Otherwise, I couldn't guarantee a win.
"You bastard!"
The moment I threw my shield at Horus, Syla took it as an opening and swept her spear at me. I'd given up the shield, but I still had a sword in my hand.
Clang!
I caught the spear on my blade.
"Not a chance!"
"Damn it."
I tried to step inside the spear's reach, but Syla gave ground just as fast, and I came up short. A spear outranges a sword — that's just how it is. All I could really do was keep the fairies from reaching the Fire Dragon King.
"You son of a bitch!"
"Whoa?!"
Horus, still on the ground, snatched up the shield and flung it right back at me the same way I had. It came in from the side; I ducked just in time, and the shield sailed off into the distance.
Damn it! That's my shield!
Not having an attack skill hurt like hell. Temptation and Molt were both excellent skills, but they had no offensive effect whatsoever — in a situation like this, they might as well not have existed.
I glanced behind me.
"Stay back, you traitorous bitch! Aaaagh!"
"...Tsk."
Aquaril, who I'd expected to punch through without breaking a sweat, was having a harder time than I'd thought. Kanya knew perfectly well that if Aquaril got close, her Master the Fire Dragon King was finished — so she was desperately spraying poison in every direction to keep her at bay.
Hmm...
Aquaril's agility sat at thirty-six points. If I could interrupt Kanya's attack just once, she'd break through in a single burst and take both Kanya and the Fire Dragon King's heads.
...Tsk. No other choice, is there?
I checked my inventory, then looked back and forth between the Fire Dragon King's fairies. Time to roll the dice.
"Die!"
"Get out of the way!"
Syla thrust her spear at my head while Horus dropped low and came in with a tackle.
"Don't you—"
Now!
The instant I saw Kanya pull a poison vial from her robes, I activated my skill.
Temptation
"Wha— huh?"
The moment Temptation kicked in, Kanya's hand — which had been aimed at Aquaril — changed direction. The poison vial in her grip came flying toward me instead.
Clang!
"Kh!"
I raised my sword and blocked the most dangerous threat — the spear. But the price of stopping that spear was taking Horus's tackle full-on. Her shoulder slammed into my gut as she wrapped her arms around my waist.
Smash!
As I went over backward, Kanya's vial shattered against my back. The liquid poison hit the air and bloomed into a mist, seeping straight into my leather armor.
"Gaaaaah!"
My back burned like I'd been branded. The effect hit that fast — this was no ordinary poison.
I clamped down.
"Urgh?! What the hell is this strength...! Ghh, ghhhhh!"
"Aaaagh!"
I locked my legs around Horus's waist and squeezed with everything I had, just to endure the fire in my back. She groaned under the full-force hold.
"Kyaaah!"
A woman's scream rang out behind me. I twisted my head to look — and saw Kanya dissolving into light. Aquaril had killed her.
But where's the Fire Dragon King?
The terrified wreck of a man who'd been cowering just moments ago was gone. Behind where he'd been, a door stood wide open. He'd run for it.
Nice!
The Fire Dragon King had no one left to protect him. He couldn't have gotten far. Aquaril would run him down and finish him in no time.
"Master!"
Huh?
But Aquaril didn't chase the Fire Dragon King. She came sprinting toward me instead. This was a game that ended the moment you took the king — so why?
"...Ah."
I turned my head and understood immediately why she was running to me.
"Die!"
The lancer fairy Syla was driving her spear down at me. The rule that the game ended when you took the king didn't just apply to the Fire Dragon King. It applied to me, too.
The spear came at me in slow motion. My own death — impaled through the skull — played itself out automatically in my head.
I'm going to die...!
After everything it took to get this far, I die like this? This cheaply?
"Die!!!!"
"Master!!!!!"
Slash!
"Ghk...!"
Syla clutched her throat and staggered back. The spear that had been aimed at my forehead clattered to the floor in two pieces.
"M-Master..."
Blood spraying from her neck, Syla stumbled, then collapsed. Leaving only the broken spear behind, she dissolved into light and vanished.
"Kh! S-Syla..."
Horus's face twisted with grief.
Slash!
And then her head came off under Aquaril's blade, too. She oxidized into light.
"Hah... I thought I was dead."
With Horus gone, the weight pinning me down vanished. My thighs, with nothing left to squeeze, went slack. It had all happened in a split second. If Aquaril had been even a little slower — no, if she'd just stuck to the original plan and chased the fleeing Fire Dragon King — Syla's spear would have been buried in my forehead.
"I really... let my guard down."
Things had been going exactly according to plan, and I'd gotten sloppy. No — not "gotten sloppy." I'd just let my guard down, period. Sure, I'd more or less engineered this situation on purpose to take out that annoying Kanya, but still. One wrong move and I would've been dead.
Ah. I wouldn't have actually died, though, would I?
Between clearing the dungeon and finishing quests, I'd accumulated 1,080 gems. Spend a thousand and I'd resurrect on the spot even if I died — so even if Syla's spear had punched through my skull, I'd have been back up in no time.
"Are you all right, Master?"
"Yeah, I'm fi— ugh!"
I took Aquaril's hand and stood — and that's when the pain in my back finally registered. Kanya's poison had soaked into the leather armor.
"M-Master! What's wrong?"
"M-my back... stay back for a second."
"What? B-but..."
"You could get poisoned too, so hurry!"
"Master..."
I bit down hard on my lip and shoved Aquaril away. She hopped from foot to foot, watching me suffer. My back stung and burned at the same time, like I'd been branded with a hot iron. It felt like dozens of fire ants were crawling across my skin, biting like mad.
An-antidote potion...
I stripped off the poison-soaked leather armor, yanked an antidote potion from my inventory, and downed it. It was an item I'd found in a treasure chest while clearing the F-rank dungeon, the Dungeon of the Greedy Serpent.
"Hah... this world is seriously insane."
The poison had taken effect instantly — and so did the antidote. The moment I finished the bottle, the pain in my back vanished like it had been washed away.
"Master... are you all right?"
"Yeah... I think I can actually breathe now."
"I'm so sorry, Master. I should have taken Kanya down faster. Because I was too slow, you..."
"It's fine, it's fine. You saved my life, didn't you? Call it even. We're even."
I waved her off, trying to soothe the teary-eyed Aquaril. This time the guilt must have cut pretty deep, because she ended up crying for real.
Ugh... I should get her mind on something else.
"Aquaril. I'm going to rest here for a bit — think you can go kill the Fire Dragon King for me?"
"...Yes, Master. Please wait just a moment. I'll bring you the Fire Dragon King's head shortly!"
"Ah — no, you don't need to bring the hea— Aquaril? Aquaril!"
The request to go kill the Fire Dragon King lit a fire under her. She didn't even wait for the rest of what I was saying — she just bolted through the side door the Fire Dragon King had fled through. Whoa. The look on her face was like Guan Yu riding out to take Hua Xiong's head.
"Hah, I'm exhausted. Let me just rest a bit."
I let out a dry chuckle and lay down on the floor, planning to rest until Aquaril got back.
BOOOOOOM!
"...The fuck?!"
That is, until a massive explosion erupted from the doorway she'd just gone through. I scrambled up, grabbed the sword and shield off the floor, and sprinted for the door.
"Aquaril!"
"Kh! Be careful, Master!"
Aquaril, crouched behind a pillar, shouted a warning.
"What the... kh?!"
Fwoooooosh!
A basketball-sized sphere of flame came screaming toward me. I threw myself into a roll and ducked behind a thick pillar the same way she had.
BOOOOOOM!
"Ugh?! What kind of power is that...!"
The fireball that had torn through where I'd just been standing slammed into the wall and detonated. A chunk of the wall crumbled, blackened and scorched. The blast was damn near a bomb — I was stunned.
The Fire Dragon King was howling, indiscriminately raining down fire magic. The palace became a sea of flames in seconds.
"You've got to be kidding me."
The Fire Dragon King had come back to his senses. I scowled. The difficulty of this fight had just gone way up.
"Eek! Eeeek! The wanderer! The Wandering King is here!"
Seized by terror, the Fire Dragon King kept screaming that the Wandering King had come for him. If even a shred of reason had remained, he would have realized instantly that the enemy who'd come for him was not the Wandering King. Unfortunately, fear had swallowed him whole, and he never made the connection.
"I'm... so scared!"
The Fire Dragon King, who'd been trembling on the floor behind Kanya, pushed himself to his feet. Then he staggered toward the door behind him. In his heart he wanted to vanish from this place like the wind — but his body wouldn't cooperate.
Snap.
"Gaaaaaah!"
The Fire Dragon King threw his head back and screamed as if he were about to collapse. He had just felt his connection with Kanya sever. When the bond between a Master and a fairy is cut, it means the fairy is dead.
Snap.
"N-no... please stop... at this rate... they'll all die!"
This time the connection with Syla broke. She was dead too. The nightmare that had bound this king for ten years was playing out all over again. A man who had appeared in the middle of the battlefield out of nowhere. The moment that man unleashed his mana, the fairies had died in the blink of an eye.
Snap.
"....."
In the end, even Horus — his last fairy — lost her life. Not a single fairy remained at the Fire Dragon King's side.
He stopped walking and lifted his head. A mirror stood before him, and in it was a wretched man who could easily have been mistaken for an old man.
"This is... me?"
The wretched man in the mirror was himself. A king in name only. He hadn't looked in a mirror in years. Only now did the Fire Dragon King realize just how far he had fallen.
"I... failed to protect them again. I couldn't protect them ten years ago... and I still can't protect them now, ten years later."
He had loved his fairies. Truly, deeply. Most Masters thought of their fairies as fine weapons and a convenient outlet for lust. They looked human — identical to themselves — but because they had summoned them, because their race was "fairy," they used them as tools. The Fire Dragon King was different. He had thought of his fairies as companions he would spend his entire life with.
"...I'm sorry."
The Fire Dragon King offered a sincere apology to his dead fairies. Tears traced the path of his gaunt, protruding cheekbones.
The king who had been a coward, trapped in the past, came back to his senses.